European Kingdoms

Ancient Italian Peninsula

Itali
/ Vitali (Italics)

The so-called West
Indo-European
tribes arrived at the eastern edge of Central Europe around 2500 BC.
Their northern group became the
proto-Celts of the
Urnfield culture while the southern group seemingly migrated
westwards and southwards, reaching Illyria and northern
Italy.
Already divided further into semi-isolated tribes, they became more
civilised in habits and technologies due to contact with southern
Greeks and
Etruscans.
In the eleventh to eighth centuries BC, some of those groups in
Illyria crossed by sea into the Italian peninsula and settled along
the south-eastern coast. Those in the north Italian piedmont gradually
migrated southwards to occupy much of the rest of eastern and central
Italy. These tribes all formed part of a general group called Italics.

The Itali were a group of Italics who, during much of the Iron Age,
were located in the 'toe' of Italy, in the section to the south-west
of the Greek colony of Hipponium. They were neighboured by the
Morgetes to the north-east
and the Siculi of
Sicily to the west, albeit
with several Greek colonies of Magna Graecia between them. The Itali
people provided the source of the very name of the country, thanks to
Greek writers attaching their name to the entire region around them.
This was subsequently adopted by the
Romans, thanks to whom its
use became universal. The origins of the Italics are uncertain, but
the Oscan-Umbrian group of which the Itali were part are largely
accepted as being Indo-Europeans (perhaps
proto-Celts) who migrated
into the peninsula from the north in the eleventh to eighth centuries
BC. Their early history is unknown, but they are distinguished by
ancient writers as being a sub-division of the
Oenotri, along with the
Chones and
Morgetes.

Their language is also largely unknown, but it may have been related
to the Oscan-Umbrian group of Indo-European languages (P-Italic),
which were widely spoken in Iron Age Italy before the rise to
dominance of Latin (Latin itself was a slightly more distantly related
language, coming from the Indo-European Latino-Faliscan group, or
Q-Italic). The similar language of the Siculi influenced the Greeks
on Sicily, and from there fed back into Greece itself and then into
Latin. Further similarities suggest that Siculi and Latin were related
languages, since the former contained both words and grammatical forms
which belonged to Latin but which were not common to either it or
Greek.

The Itali left no inscriptions or other materials which would allow
scholars to classify their language group. Ancient writers persisted
in ascribing them with a Grecian origin, which was mixed fairly equally
with the native barbarians amongst whom they settled when they arrived
in Italy. The possible Grecian origin would link them to the
Pelasgians, and also
make them cousins of the Illyrian tribes in south-eastern Italy,
principally the Iapyges.

Examination of the true meaning of the tribe's name seems to be fraught
with pitfalls, as many people and sources seem to have differing theories.
Perhaps the most straightforward is that tribe's name probably came from
an alteration of an Oscan source word. It means '[land of] young bulls',
the root being the same as in 'vetus' (rather than the 'vita' shown below),
meaning 'of the last year, a year ago; yearling', and later on it also
came to mean 'old' in Latin. The bull was the totem of the Sabellic tribes
(see the myth of Cominius Castronius for some details of this).

This was first recorded by the Greeks at 'víteliú', who were not able to
pronounce 'v' or 'w' (in examples such as Elea-Velia, Veneti-Enetai, etc).
This may somehow connect with the Latin 'vitulus', meaning 'calf', although
this is not necessarily the case. Another, less likely option is that it
came from an Illyrian word, or the legendary ruler, Italus. For the Latins,
the letter 'v' was pronounced as a 'w', something that very easily goes
silent, so the Vitali easily became the Itali. Perhaps the most likely route
for this can be seen in the Middle English of the fourteenth century, which
contained the Latin 'vītālis', equivalent to 'vīt', meaning
'[a] life' (a derivative of 'vīvere', meaning 'to live', akin to the
Greek 'bíesthai', the Sanskrit 'jīvati' '[he] lives', and the English
'quick'), plus 'ālis'. Or perhaps 'vita' plus '-el', meaning 'little
life', perhaps the name of a tribal leader. This appears in the Greek
'víteliú', which came from the Italic *vitell-, meaning 'a little bull', but
this doesn't seem to be entirely believable by all. The 'little' part is fine,
which supplies the '-el' suffix that is still used today in various forms.
It is 'vit' meaning 'bull' that makes no sense. Perhaps, since a bull is
seen as the inseminator, he brings new life (life in Latin being 'vita').
That's the only possibility that makes sense in terms of a metaphor. Therefore
the most reasonable proposal seems to be that Italy is named after the tribe,
who in turn were named after a metaphor for a young bull. Although this is a
contorted solution, it does eventually match the most straightforward
explanation, shown above.

(Additional information by Edward Dawson and Anne S E Wittelsbürger, and
from The Roman History: From Romulus and the Foundation of Rome to the
Reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Velleius Paterculus, J C Yardley,
Anthony A Barrett, Paleo-Balkan Languages, V Neroznak, Ancient
Languages of the Balkans, R Katicic. The Etymological Dictionary
of the Russian Language, M Fasmer, Basic Romance Linguistics,
E Bourcier, Research in Popular Latin and its links with Romance
languages, N Korletyanu, Brief historical grammar of the Latin
language, W Lindsey, The Corpus of Oscan Inscriptions, I
Tsvetaev, and from A Historical Grammar of the Latin Language,
I Tronsky.)

In his work, Politics, Aristotle names a king of Oenetria called
Italus, who is the successor to Oenotrus himself. Oenetria at this time
is taken to refer to the 'toe' of the Italian 'boot, an area which is
known today as Calabria. Aristotle claims that the
Oenotri of this
region had changed their name to the Itali. It is this name that is used by
later Greek settlers to refer to the entire land, but this origin story is
probably sheer invention. Thucydides claims that Italus is a king of the
Siculi, while
after diligent research Dionysius concludes that the Itali and Siculi are
one people. King Morges of the
Morgetes is claimed as the successor to Italus, and Siculus of the
Siculi the successor to Morges, which seems to illustrate the belief that
the Itali, Morgetes, Oenotri, and Siculi have a shared heritage.

10th century BC

According
to Thucydides, the arrival of the more warlike
Oenotri and
Opici in northern Calabria triggers
the migration of the Elymi, Itali,
and Siculi into the 'toe' of
Italy and onto
Sicily. Antiochus of
Syracuse, writing around 420 BC,
confirms this.

The modern Aspromonte National Park would have formed the
heart of the Itali tribal territory in the 'toe' area of
the peninsula, although very little is known about them

7th century BC

Greek colonies along the coastal region of the 'toe' of Italy include
Hipponium (modern Vibo Valentia) on the Gulf of Terina, Caulonia on the
opposite coast, Locri Epizephyrii further down the same stretch of coastline,
and Rhegion (modern Reggio Calabria) on the south-western tip, facing
Sicily, plus
half a dozen more minor colonies. As they begin to interact with the Italic
native peoples, they start using the name of the Itali as a reference to the
entire region.

411 BC

Writing at this time, the reliable Greek historian Thucydides of Alimos
(close to
Athens),
mentions the Siculi. He says
that groups of Siculi still occupy the Italian mainland in his time. It
is possible, given their close links in the past with the Itali, that
this people could be Siculi in all but name.

218 - 202 BC

The Second Punic War is fought against
Carthage.
Rome is aided by its
Etruscan,
Picene, and Umbrian forces,
but Italy is invaded
by Hannibal Barca and a Roman army is massacred at the Battle of Cannae,
killing 60,000. Rome's resurgence at the successful conclusion of
this war seals the fate of the Calabrian tribes which include the
Brutii,
Chones, Itali,
Morgetes, and
Oenotri. All of them fall
permanently under Roman domination and the Itali largely disappear from
history.

91 - 89 BC

The
Marsi fight the Social War
against Rome in which
Rome's allies strive for, and are eventually granted, citizenship. The
Frentani, Latins and
Umbri are also granted
citizenship, although they play a smaller role in the war, with the Umbri
joining the rebels late and agreeing terms with Rome early on. Thereafter,
the Itali, not mentioned in the war, are gradually absorbed within Roman
Italy and lose their
individual identity.